


Fold Your Hands Into Mine

by theshipsfirstmate



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, Missing Scene, because danny boy tried to sacrifice himself and they're def gonna talk about that one, dousy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-19
Updated: 2020-08-19
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:22:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25997455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theshipsfirstmate/pseuds/theshipsfirstmate
Summary: a missing scene from the finale from two POVs -- Daisy and Daniel steal a moment after he tries to stay behind"Daisy wonders if he’s realizing it in real time, just like she is -- if that’s what’s got a smile twitching at the corners of his mouth, despite the seriousness of the moment. She wonders if he understands that this is the way people like them get to talk about what they mean to each other."
Relationships: Skye | Daisy Johnson & Daniel Sousa, Skye | Daisy Johnson/Daniel Sousa
Comments: 23
Kudos: 184





	1. Time and Again, It's Time to Be Brave (Daisy POV)

_Title from “[Faith](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DwU-s_Zxv_MQ&t=MWUwOGJmNDk5ZDA3MTg4ZTg5ZGQyNDE2OTcxZDJjNDhmMzNkYTBkZSxROEM3b2JYMQ%3D%3D&b=t%3AiAw4tJIAalN1OvhWtUFPsQ&p=https%3A%2F%2Ftheshipsfirstmate.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F626911245550944256%2Fagents-of-shield-fic-fold-your-hands-into-mine&m=1&ts=1597869162)” by Bon Iver._

**Part 1 (Daisy POV) - Time and Again, It’s Time to Be Brave  
**

Deke and Fitz start barking orders and the team jumps into action. Everyone except for her. And, by extension of the hands she’s still holding, him.

The room is spinning — it feels like there isn’t enough air in her lungs. It takes her another stilted second to remember that she’s the one who has to make that happen.

She’s spent years feeling the vibrational frequency of every living thing around her, but right now there’s nothing, save for the strangest stillness. It’s like she’s frozen in place, like someone’s suddenly pressed pause right before the movie’s most climactic scene.

“Daisy?” Sousa’s voice catches at the edge of her consciousness like a striking match, and she turns to him as the flame flickers to life.

“What the hell was that?” It’s a half-whisper, aiming for indignation, but the emotion in her throat chokes the words out somewhere closer to anguish. She can barely meet his eyes, that spot where they crinkle at the corners threatening to weaken her already tenuous resolve.

“What was-” 

“You… volunteering yourself to stay behind? Like it’s nothing?”

“It’s not nothing,” he says with a stern nod and a hooded look that hits her like a shock when she does meet it directly. “It’s what you do for your team.” 

This is that Army talk he was on about before Deke chimed in. This is how she was going to watch history repeat itself in real time. She’d recognized the bitter taste of dread in the back of her throat.

“It’s what’s right,” he adds, and she wants to tell him a million ways he’s wrong, but each one is more selfish than the last.

It’s the first time she hasn’t found anything endearing in his immutable sense of nobility. Or maybe she still does, maybe she _would_ , if it didn’t make her chest feel like it was about to cave in.

The S.H.I.E.L.D. team bustles around their otherwise intimate moment, and Daisy can’t find it in herself to feel embarrassed when she huffs out a shallow breath and asks outright, with a little more vigor this time. “So what, that was a kiss goodbye, before?” 

“Wasn’t it?” His response comes out shaped like a parrying shot, but when she meets his eyes she sees the same honest, torturous worry that’s coursing recklessly through her own veins. “You were the one going, headlong into enemy territory without any backup. You’re about to do it again. Maybe it’s all-“

“It’s not the _same_ ,” she interrupts, petulant selfishness finally boiling over even as part of her protests internally that he’s got a point. She drops his hands with perhaps too much force, and scrubs her palms over her face in frustration.

No one’s laid out that part of the plan yet, at least not out loud, but even Sousa understands that she’s barreling towards a winner-take-all showdown with Malick. That’s how this ends, and it’s going to take everything she’s got — plus a little luck she’s never had — to make it back to her team. To her family. And to _him_.

“I’m already here on borrowed time,” Sousa says again. “And lord knows, I don’t have the powers to be any use to you this time around.”

 _“That’s not true…”_ She says the words before she can fully think them through, breath catch on a gasp.

Daisy wonders if he’s realizing it in real time, just like she is – if that’s what’s got a smile twitching at the corners of his mouth, despite the serious mood of the moment. She wonders if he knows that this is about more than just a mission. She wonders if he understands that this is the way people like them get to talk about what they mean to each other.

He _is_ good for her, she’s more certain of that than she’s ever been about anything her heart’s ever tried to tell her. They could be good for each other, she thinks, if this timeline leads to a future where they get to try. “But I have to take on Malick. It has to be me.”

Sousa nods at the ground, solemn, and for a second she’s desperate to know what he’s thinking. Then she remembers that he’s the kind of man who will tell her.

“I know,” he answers softly. “But I don’t have to like it. I’d carry you out of this one too, if I could.”

That’s where it all started, didn’t it? The memories rush back as her stomach flips over on itself. It wasn’t the playful flirting over technology or the way her heart had stutter-stepped when he called her his fiancée with a hand at the small of her back. It wasn’t the way she’d seen her own reflection in his eyes when he talked about the stakes he had in the fight against HYDRA and how far he was willing to go it alone.

It was his voice in her ear telling her they were going to make it home, the way she’d trusted that he could turn a jagged shard of glass into a way out of that nightmare. It was waking up a hundred times and always finding him there at her feet.

It was the way he’d kissed her then — hesitant until he was certain — and the way he’d kissed her today, like every part of him was determined to make it count. It _had_ been a goodbye, she realizes, but it was also an opening, a beginning, the first chapter of a story where, if all goes to plan, they could finally find themselves on the same page.

Someone behind them shouts an urgent reminder, and Daisy’s eyes start to go cloudy again. Hope is a dangerous thing, but it’s the only part of this she can take with her right now. 

“I’ll come back,” she says as she reaches for his hands again, clearing her throat to offer a promise they both know isn’t hers to give. “And you’d better, too. I’m not ready to say goodbye.”

Sousa’s eyes go soft — like he understands the other thing she’s not ready to say yet — and then he’s tugging her towards him, wrapping an arm around her waist and kissing her deep. 

This one is pure passion and urgency, the heat of a fire they’re desperate to keep kindling. It’s a _promise_ , and she feels him grin against her lips when she chases him back for a second kiss before pulling away, breathless. 

It’s time to go, and he drops his forehead to hers and echoes her farewell from earlier — a loaded vow in just seven words.

“I’ll see you when you get back.”


	2. If You’ll Come to Know, I’m the Faithful Kind (Daniel POV)

_Title from “[Faith](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DwU-s_Zxv_MQ&t=YmZlNDQzMWM5OGI2YWE0YjQ3MThkZjlmMjUwODFhN2M1ZjA4ZjczYyxQbktVMUl0dA%3D%3D&b=t%3AiAw4tJIAalN1OvhWtUFPsQ&p=https%3A%2F%2Ftheshipsfirstmate.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F626911337421864960%2Fagents-of-shield-fic-fold-your-hands-into-mine&m=1&ts=1597869248)” by Bon Iver._

**Part 2 (Daniel POV) - If You’ll Come to Know, I’m the Faithful Kind**

The team starts moving around them, but Daisy stays still and so does he, unwilling to be the first to sever their connection, especially when the clock is ticking as loudly and violently as it is. If it’s his last chance to hold her, he’s going to hold on for as long as he can.

“Daisy?” He says her name softly, but it flips a switch just the same. She turns to face him, the fire in her eyes dampened slightly by a sheen of tears. 

“What the hell was that?” He wonders if she’s really as angry at him as she wants him to think she is. He wonders if she knows that she’s shaking.

“What was-” 

“You… volunteering yourself to stay behind? Like it’s nothing?”

“It’s not nothing.” Daniel tries to keep his voice resolute, but he’s half-certain the look in his eyes will give him away when he meets the raw emotion in hers. “It’s what you do for your team.” 

He doesn’t tell her that the second he turned to face her, he wanted to take it all back — that deep-drilled Army honor was the only excuse his nobility could dredge up. _Roll on,_ the 128th had whispered in his ear, as he tried to work up the courage to walk away from the woman in front of him. _Whatever it takes._

“It’s what’s right.”

The look on her face is incredulous but revealing, and Daniel wishes he had the time to to examine every bit of what it’s telling him. He’d give anything to have this conversation in private, but it doesn’t seem like they’re going to get the chance — the growing sense of urgency around them a reminder of how little time they have to sort this through. For the moment, it doesn’t seem to phase Daisy, who barely casts a glance to the team as she hones in further.

“So what, that was a kiss goodbye, before?” 

“Wasn’t it?” To be perfectly honest, Daniel isn’t much more certain now than he had been then. If his foolish heart had been the one to guide his feet towards her — looking every bit the bold and beautiful hero as she set out on her own — it was his worried mind that had reached out, determined not to regret a single second of his borrowed time. 

“You were the one going, headlong into enemy territory without any backup,” he reminds her. “You’re about to do it again. Maybe it’s all-“

“It’s not the _same_ ,” Daisy interrupts, pushing his hands away in frustration, even though he’s almost certain she knows he has a point. 

Daniel’s had some time, in the life before this one, to get used to feeling powerless, but it would be a lie if he told her it ever got easier to stomach. It’s terrifying, to open yourself up to this kind of worry about another person, to feel anything at all when the stakes are this high. There probably aren’t people in the world who understand that better than the ones in this room.

For all of her heroics, he’s learned fast that the thing that truly scares Daisy the most is the threat of losing the people she loves. He’d thought maybe it could be enough to save her from having to cross another name off that list.

“I’m already here on borrowed time,” he tells her now, though repetition doesn’t dull the painful edges of the truth. “And lord knows, I don’t have the powers to be any use to you this time around.”

Even with as close to two good legs as he could have ever hoped for, he’s no match for the enemy waiting. They both know it, and yet she surprises him again when she interrupts his thoughts with a simple response, voice cracking under the weight of her confession.

_“That’s not true…”_

Somehow that’s when Daniel knows — looking into her earnest eyes — that she feels this like he does. That’s when he understands that they’re talking about more than a mission, that this is the moment they’re going to get, to say all the things that will be left unsaid if things go sideways. And his heart thuds in his chest when he realizes she’s using it to share with him a little bit of herself, letting him into a place that she’s kept closed off for so long.

“But I have to take on Malick,” she insists. “It has to be me.”

She’d shaken off his sense of honor with a petulant frown, but he knows they’re more alike in that respect than she’d ever admit. She’ll give any for this team, this world, this timeline — _whatever it takes_ — and all he can do is keep his head down and hope that they make it to the other side.

“I know,” he answers. “But I don’t have to like it. I’d carry you out of this one too, if I could.”

Something blooms in her eyes then, and he almost tells her — because he feels it too, strong and solid in his gut. But it’s not their time yet.

He’s been drawn to her from the very beginning, trusting her word, improvising as her fiancé, volunteering himself to join her on missions, but he hadn’t let himself begin to accept it until he saw that piece of glass folded into her palm. She was in this fight like he was, and more than that, she trusted him to join her.

It’s never been about saving her, she’s more than capable of that on her own. But Daniel knows from experience, how rare it is for someone like her to let someone in, close enough to hurt them. He hopes he gets a thousand chances to prove to her he never will.

“I’ll come back.” Daisy reaches for his hands again with a heavy promise they both know isn’t hers to make. “And you’d better, too. I’m not ready to say goodbye.”

It’s close enough that he doesn’t trust himself with the words, just tugs at her wrists to pull her in and kiss her again, for as long as they’ve got left. She chases his lips back for a second, just like before, and he can’t help but grin, feeling her mouth turn up against his own.

Too soon, it’s time to go, so he ducks his forehead against hers, arms still tight around her waist, and makes a promise of his own — one he’ll fight like hell to keep.

“I’ll see you when you get back.”


End file.
